CHAPTER 15
Slowly, the beast from another planet stirred in the grass beneath the tree where her slumbering body had been laid.
Damara the cralowog arched her back, stretching her muscles, and dug her claws into the grassy turf beneath her. She brought up her bearish frame on all fours and lifted her head to snuffle at the air. For all the world, she seemed confused or perplexed, as she might well have been: for only hours ago during the night, she had been resting in a tree. Now it was morning, and perhaps she somehow remembered that strange creatures similar to the ones that she had been repeatedly encountering had come in the night and rudely, cruelly forced her down from her sleeping perch.
Damara had quickly learned that whenever these creatures appeared it always meant trouble, and that somehow all her strength, speed, and power was never enough to stop these creatures having their way. Whenever they appeared, it always meant she would experience some sudden shock, and then for some reason she would have to go to sleep; and when she awoke it was always in some unfamiliar place.
Now it was happening again. She wanted to run and hide. If she could hide, perhaps the creatures would not come. Perhaps they would not appear again; they would leave her alone and doing whatever it was that made her to sleep and she would no longer awake in strange places.
The tree lay at the edge of a forest. Good: a forest. Trees and bushes and brush; dim, cool, safe forest. Perhaps even with something to eat. She headed for there, to be out of sight, in safety and peace.
She was no more than one bound in the direction of the thicket when it happened again. The streaks of light came, but this time with no creatures making them. They came right out of the air and hit the ground in front of her, making bursts of fiery light in her path. If these streaks of light touched her, Damara knew, it would shock her, hurt her, put her back to sleep. She did not want to sleep again and wake up again in some strange place.
The streaks kept coming, not hitting her, but hitting the ground and making the sparking bursts. Damara reared up on her hind legs and made a wailing, roaring sound of dismay and alarm and fear. She could not go in the direction from which the streaks were coming so strangely out of the air. She needed to run, find another place to hide.
With a speed and grace belying her bulk, the animal spun around and made tracks for the broad, wide meadow beyond the forest’s edge. She would be out in the open there, which her instincts told her was not good. Out in the open, she would be exposed to anything else that might be out there—including other strange two-legged creatures whose presence meant trouble. However, the air also told her that there was water near. Good: water. If she could find water before she found any more two-legged creatures, she could dive in, stay under the surface, and swim until she found a place to hide. Damara ran as fast as she could, seeking the water.
The place at the edge of the forest from which the shock bolts came was not really there. The real edge of the forest lay just beyond it; this place was an illusion, a combination hologram and diffuse force field shrewdly constructed to deceive sensors.
Behind it lay an encampment with a tent, water supply, sanitation unit, fire pit, a hover-jeep, seven androids standing at attention—and their master, brandishing a shock rifle and watching from behind his force field as his quarry sped off into the distance.
Kalum Quist, with his chiseled face, dark blond hair, and smoky eyes, smiled a cruel little smile at the sight of Damara the cralowog’s hind quarters receding away across the field. He had retracted his force field to just this area right before dawn, to let Damara awaken from her sedation outside of it.
Anything inside the force field was essentially invisible to sensor probes such as the Knights or the Corps might be making to find Kalum and his quarry. But now it was time for Damara to be out—and for Kalum to get out after her, to give her a head start into the wilderness, and then track her down, make his kill, and be off with her carcass before the armor-wearing dragons could interfere.
He knew his cousins would surely have called upon the authorities by now. The corner of his mouth twisted up at the thought of very possibly having to fend them off. He and his android crew might have a good bit of sport in store for them. Of course, battling the dragon lawkeepers would mean he would have to get off Lacerta and out of the Catalan system in a hurry, as they would be right on his trail.
Kalum did not care. He had a fast ship waiting for him in orbit, and he knew plenty of places in space to hide, from which he could conduct his business selling off the parts of his kill. Kalum had had his fill of righteous people: his family, the Knights and Corps of Lacerta, the Lacertan court system, all denying him a dragon’s right to hunt and bring down a beast.
It was wrong. They were only betraying themselves as the occupants of the top of the food chain. A dragon was meant to hunt, whether with wing and claw and fang, or this way. Kalum was only being true to nature; it was they who were wrong. His father had taught him and his brother that.
His father, who was now dying in disgrace. Damn them all for reducing Kalum’s father to such a state. Perhaps they had not given him the disease, but they were damned well responsible for the way he was forced to face it. Before he began his hunt, he’d gone to see Xorian one last time, to say goodbye. Xorian had understood. He had even told Kalum that he wished he could join him on this last, glorious hunt. Father and son had embraced, knowing there would never be another embrace or another touch.
But Xorian had told Kalum that he was proud of him, as only a father could be. “You’re a true dragon,” Xorian had said. “They can take away our share of the fortune and our standing in the world and the community. They can stop respecting us. But they can never make us less than the dragons we are. Remember that, son. When all is said and done, we are dragons.”
“This one is for you, Father,” Kalum said, softly and solemnly. Then, to his androids: “Unit 1, stay here and mind the encampment. Units 2 through 7, move out with jet packs and weapon packs. Be prepared for Knights or Corps as programmed. I’ll take the jeep. Let’s go.”
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The hovercar of Dame Meline and Sir Voran, accompanied by another hover van of the Knighthood, moved out over the Corvulth Glade.
Aboard the car, Voran took the controls while Meline conferred with Brianne, Donar, and Conran. Drs. Hawkes and Kimura were aboard the larger van with a group of other Knights.
Brianne intently examined what she had brought with her from the Quist estate: a small, sleek and slender, lightweight rifle that had served her well on so many expeditions on so many planets. It had never been more important than it was now, with so much more at stake than on any other expedition she had ever undertaken.
“This is the same cyber-tranquilizer that I used to capture Damara on Torado IV,” Brianne said. “I expected that to be the last time she’d have to be shot at for a long time.” She looked up grimly at Meline. “And look where it’s gotten her. Shot at again to take her away from where she was safe. And soon they’ll be shooting at her again—this time to kill.”
“We’re not going to let that happen,” Meline promised.
“No, we are absolutely not,” Conran confirmed.
“The more I think about this, the more I’m sure it’s our cousin at the back of it,” Donar frowned. “Everything leads to him and he’s going to have everything to answer for, damn his burned heart.”
“If it’s really him, he’ll answer for it, all right,” said Meline. “He’s used to getting his quarry? Well, so are the Knights.”
“I’m as much of a hunter as he is,” said Brianne. “A hunter in my own way. I’ve tracked animals, stalked them, shot them…”
“Not to kill,” said Donar pointedly. “You’re not a killer. You’ve only brought them down to study them, tag them, move them out of places where there was stress on the environment to places where they’d do better. You’re nothing like our cousin.”
“But I use the same skills, don’t I? The same skills, the same methods…” She looked from one twin to the other, seeing no reproach on their handsome faces. “But you’re right. Not to kill. Just to learn and protect. To save their lives, not take them.”
“You remember that,” said Conran. “You’re nothing like Kalum. Animals aren’t trophies to you. And you don’t think nature is yours to do with whatever you see fit. That’s the difference between you and him.”
“When we get out into the field,” Meline reminded them, “don’t forget the transmission code I gave you in case we get separated somehow. Use it to keep in contact, or if you need it for any other reason.”
“We won’t forget,” said Conran.
“And remember,” Meline added to the twins, “you two have no wildlife field experience like Dr. Heatherton and her assistants. You’re to follow her lead and stay behind her and us Knights. I shouldn’t have brought you along at all, but…”
“We know,” Conran said. The subject of their using their family’s name and status to make themselves a part of the Knightly mission was an invisible serpent aboard the car, its presence known but not spoken. The name Quist carried the highest privilege on Lacerta, and in many quarters was accorded good will. But Conran and Donar wanted no resentment between their nest and the Knights. In the final measure they were both important, and in the end the brothers wanted to keep the good will of the Spires. They would prevail on the authority of the Knights only as much as it was absolutely necessary—to help Brianne.
Satisfied that her weapon was in good working order, Brianne slipped it into its holster that was a part of her hunting trousers. She looked at the brothers watching her, saying with her expression that she was happy to have them along. More and more, Brianne did not care for the idea of doing anything without them.
She could sense that they felt the same about her. Once they made it through their present crisis, Brianne could see a long and pleasing—very pleasing—partnership between herself and them; a partnership in more than just her work alone. Before this whole madness started, she had been enjoying an evening with them, an evening that would have ended—and in a way, truly begun—with the three of them back in bed.
Despite the threat to Damara, there was a part of Brianne that wanted nothing more than to be in bed with Donar and Conran again. Their situation, and their being in it with her, pointed up to her how much she truly wanted them.
“We’re not the pampered lizards Uncle Xorian thinks we are,” said Conran. “My brother and I are dragons as much as anyone else born on Lacerta. We have instincts of our own.”
Donar agreed. “We can handle ourselves out there.” He tapped a bulge at the hip of the bottom of his skin suit. “And it’s not as if we haven’t come prepared, ourselves.”
Putting a hand on an identical bulge at the hip of his suit bottom, Conran said, “We are not helpless by any means. We can defend ourselves if we must. Or attack if we have to.”
“Still and all,” said Meline, “the Knights are in charge. You’ll follow orders, both of you. Understand?” She had no qualms about flexing her Knightly authority as she had been trained to do. Despite the brothers’ wealth and position, she was the authority and she would exert it as she saw fit.
“We understand,” said Conran.
“Yes,” Donar simply added.
And the vehicles of the Knights skimmed along on their way into the wilderness.
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Across the meadow was a stream, wide and deep with rushing and babbling water, leading further and deeper into the Corvulth Glade. Damara the cralowog appeared at the bank of the stream and took long strides down the incline toward the edge of the water. She did not wait to be all the way at the bank of the stream before she gave one final, mighty and prodigious leap into the air, hurling herself up higher and more easily than anyone might expect of so massive a creature, and stretched all four limbs out to her sides.
Her glider folds spread out at her sides, making her a spectacular sail of fur with her tail trailing behind her. She appeared almost to be a living kite for the few seconds that she sailed through the air until she reached the water just at the part where the shallow part turned deep. She hit the surface and a huge white splash surged up on all sides of her. The animal disappeared into the rush of the stream, and the waters closed behind her and flowed and swirled onward.
The hover vehicles of the Knights arrived at the stream, and the car carrying Brianne and her companions retracted its roof, just as the cralowog took her leap. The two crafts came to a stop in the air over the stream.
“Did you see that?” Donar almost shouted. “The way she launched herself and unfurled like a carpet! What a beast!” Catching himself, he turned to Brianne. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean…”
“No,” said Brianne proudly. “You’re right. She is ‘quite a beast.’ And she deserves every bit of our protection.”
“What now?” Meline asked.
“We’re going to have to travel downstream behind her, following her with sensors,” replied Brianne. “We can’t tranquilize her until she comes up onto land again. She can hold her breath under water, but not while she’s sedated. She needs her voluntary reflexes to breathe while she’s submerged, and the tranquilizer will seize them. So, we’ll have to follow and wait.”
“You heard her,” said Meline to Voran at the controls. “Probe beneath the surface with sensors and head downstream.”
“Downstream it is,” acknowledged the other Knight.
The car took off, following the flow of the water beneath it. Conran, Donar, and Meline could feel Brianne's concentration focusing to razor sharpness, all of them vicariously sharing the scientific thrill of the hunt with her. The hover van carrying the other Knights and Burton and Sondra swooped in behind them, Meline sending them a message of what they were doing. The other vehicle followed along.
With the two crafts sliding along through the air, following the flow of the stream, Brianne touched the cuff of her sleeve and said to no one in particular, “As soon as we get to her coordinates I should be able to bring up a sensor echo visually…” A few minutes ticked by and the light in Brianne’s eyes contrasted the calm on her face. “I think I have her.” She touched another place on her cuff, and a hologram leapt into the air. It showed a dorsal silhouette, rendered in light, of Damara in the water, her limbs extended out and her ribs unfurled into fins, her body swaying and her tail twisting and curving in an aquatic dance.
“Moving along pretty well, isn’t she?” Donar remarked.
Brianne’s face blossomed into a proud little smile. “There’s my girl.”
And suddenly, there was a sound, a shocking noise that made Brianne look up, alarmed, from her hologram and made Donar and Conran flinch. Meline moved to the front of the vehicle where Voran was. “Proximity alert!” called Voran. “Incoming—we’ve got company.”
Meline called into the badge on her armor top: “Van Beta, proximity alert. Are you reading? Over.”
A male voice came through Meline’s badge. “Skimmer Alpha, this is Van Beta. We’re reading six inbound targets, coming in fast. Scans indicate non-organic humanoids, armed, with jet packs. Over.”
Voran cut off the alarm. Meline called back, “Engage with targets; we’ll do the same. Over and out.” Drawing her powerblade, she turned back to address Brianne, Donar, and Conran: “The three of you, keep your heads down. Traffic is about to get a bit nasty.” Without another word, the Dame of Lacerta put one foot up on one edge of the craft, morphed quickly to semi-dragon form, and pushed herself off and into the air, swishing her tail hard and spreading her wings.
At the moment she was aloft, a hatch on the van behind them slid open and three more Knights as man-dragons flew out to join her. The four dragon combatants climbed high into the air. Despite Meline’s caveat, Brianne and the brothers could not help but look up to where the Knights were going. In the air overhead, half a dozen grey shapes appeared, swooping in fast.
Brianne, who by this time had shut off her hologram of Damara, cast a worried look at the brothers. As one, Donar and Conran’s hands went to the bulges at their hips and each one withdrew from his own suit a shiny cylindrical weapon of his own. “If they get anywhere near here,” said Conran, “we’ll have a surprise for them.”
“What are those?” Brianne asked apprehensively.
“Pulse clubs,” replied Conran. “They give off bursts of magnetic force. Ironically, we used to play at target practice with a lower-powered version of these, with Kalum and Xhondor, when we were little dragons.”
“We brought the grown-up versions along, just in case,” said Donar.
Brianne’s whole body tensed up. She braced herself for what was to come and silently asked the universe to see her to the other side of it.
High above, four dragon Knights advanced at six flying androids. Taking aim with the firing ends of their powerblades, the winged reptilians attacked. Streams of energy cut through the air. The androids banked and swerved to evade them. The Knights, expecting this, made a firing pattern to shoot beams into the paths of the automatons. One beam caught one android, turning it to a spinning, flailing mass of limbs.
One of the android’s companions swerved into another beam and met the same fate. Both artificial bodies went twirling down to the bank of the stream. Having evened the odds, the Knights prepared to fire off another round and whittle down their opposition. But the androids had a counterattack.
From niches on their chests, the artificial beings drew out spherical devices. Flying fast at the Knights, they raised their arms and hurled the spheres. The dragons attempted to pull up or swerve away before the objects struck them—only to find that the object was not to strike them. In an instant, the sky was lit up as if four miniature suns had burst in the air over the stream. Everything became a sheet of shocking, painful whiteness into which Meline and her three comrades disappeared.
The blast of blazing intensity reached all the way down to where Brianne and the Quist brothers sat in the hovercar. They all lurched downward, flinching, covering their eyes. Brianne cried out from the cruelly luminous discharge. Voran, as shocked as the three of them, lost control of the vehicle, which went into a violent spin in the air over the rushing water.
In a moment, the monstrous flash faded. Voran, blinking and shaking his head hard, managed to pull the craft out of its spin and bring it to a hovering stop. He looked over his shoulder, squinting and blinking, and called back, “Are you three all right?”
Brianne and the brothers got themselves sitting up straight again, dazzled, with heads shaking. Frightened, Brianne asked, “What was that? What just happened?”
“Photon grenades,” answered Voran. “Illegal for anyone but Knights and Corps to have.” He cast his blinking eyes upward, straining for a look at what was going on above. “I think they’re in trouble,” he said grimly. Standing up and drawing his own powerblade, he said, “I’m going to have to get up there. You three will have to sit tight.”
“Don’t worry about us,” said Conran, holding up his pulse club. “Just get after them; we’ll take care of Brianne.”
Donar nodded, holding his own club with one hand and taking Brianne’s hand with the other. “Get them,” he said.
Voran morphed to half-dragon, gave a leap into the air, unfurled his wings and thrashed his tail, and shot off towards the sky.
Brianne and the brothers, left in the hovering vehicle, watched Voran go. They all looked up again to where Voran was going and saw four winged figures making mad, crazed loops in the air. Brianne’s heart sank, knowing that Meline and her fellows had caught the light blast in mid-flight. The hover van behind them had also come to a floating stop, and another Knight, who had been piloting it, came streaking up into view, his weapon at the ready. It was now four Knights blinded in flight, two more coming to their aid—and four androids unimpaired against them. Brianne’s sinking heart turned cold.
The four blinded Knights were helpless. They became like living missiles with no guidance, flying and spiraling downward, desperately trying to break their momentum with outstretched wings. Meline swooped down, out of control, and crashed into the boughs of a stand of trees. Another Knight came barreling in behind her, into a nearby tree. They disappeared into the greenery, which erupted in clouds of leaves and branches. A third Knight plunged downward into a growth of bushes. After a terrible crackling, he did not move.
That left only two Knights against the four androids. The automatons, with mechanical speed, drew force-beam guns from packs at their hips, and fired at the reptilians. Just as quickly, Voran and the other Knight engaged the energy blade ends of their weapons and slashed them through the air. With searing flashes, they deflected the bolts. It became an aerial dance of dragons and androids with beams slashing forth and blades making streaks in the air to block them. But the two dragons were outnumbered.
Their defense against the attacks of the androids was a flurry of spinning and bursting lights, but the assault of the androids broke through. An android’s beam caught the Knight who’d piloted the van in one leg. Reeling in shock, he spun out of control and went into a spiral towards the trees. Only Voran was left now.
The four automatons closed in and he switched from defense to offense, firing in a blanketing pattern at them. He struck one android and sent it plummeting for the ground, then force beams from the remaining three caught him in the shoulder and hip. Stricken, he dropped with wings flailing, twisting his tail and straining his wings to aim for the bushes.
Brianne, Conran, and Donar had watched the entire battle from the hovercar, and now knew that only they were left. Brianne turned pale. She put her hand on her holster where her cyber-tranquilizer was sheathed and sensed the utter futility of drawing a weapon that would work only on organic creatures. She and the brothers stood up together and faced the descending automatons. A lump raised in Brianne’s throat at the sight of them drawing nearer, looming larger in their sight. In a second, the artificial attackers would be upon them.
The three androids came down within range, weapons at the ready. The Quist brothers put Brianne behind them and raised their pulse clubs. “Crouch down, Brianne, onto the floor,” said Conran in a tone that made it an order, not a request. In response to his tone, Brianne dropped to her knees and huddled against one of the seats. She swallowed hard. She was afraid even to breathe.
The next thing she heard was the piercing sound of the pulse cannons in the brothers’ hands going off. She dared to look up at them and saw them swerve from one side to the other, firing at the advancing foes. She looked on as shadows swept over the open car from above, and saw the brothers spin and pivot around, continuing to fire, and knew that the three flying automatons were now circling them, surrounding them from different points. Her mouth opened and turned dry. No scream escaped her lips.
Then there was a flash, not as bright and searing as that of the photon grenades, but shocking enough, right in the carriage of the car. One twin’s body went into a spasm and crumpled next to her. And now, Brianne did cry out, horrified: “Donar!”
She crawled over next to the fallen brother while the other twin continued firing. She checked Donar for a pulse and found it. He was only stunned. But now her skin was pale and clammy with growing fear. Brianne looked up again at Conran, firing away in every direction at the circling androids. Another flash lit up and Conran staggered, falling against the front seats. He leaned there, supporting himself, breathing heavily, straining to hold up his weapon and continue firing.
On a pure, terrified impulse, Brianne leapt to her feet beside Conran and took him by one shoulder to steady him. Conran, half-groggy, half-angry, glared over at her. “We told you…to stay down. Get back…”
A force bolt came searing in, striking Conran on one side and hitting Brianne with a glancing impact. Conran toppled in one direction, falling against one side of the hovercar. “Brianne!” he cried. The last thing he saw before sinking to the floor was Brianne flying and spinning back in a whirl of limbs—over the opposite side of the vehicle. The last thing he heard was a dreadful splash.
Darkness closed around Conran’s mind, snuffing out one final thought. If Brianne were stunned or unconscious when she hit the water, it would carry her away and she would not stand a chance.
Then everything went black.